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Oddi Helgason
Oddi Helgason (c.1070/80 – c. 1140/50), called Star Oddi (Icelandic: ''Stjörnu-Oddi''), worked as a farm laborer in the 12th century in northern Iceland and achieved remarkable astronomical knowledge through careful observations. Oddi resumed his work in the '' Oddatala'' where he stated the position of the sun for every day of the year in Iceland and calculated the date of summer and winter solstices and their direction giving a useful source of orientation for sailors, since no navigational instruments were used at that time. Oddi features as the protagonist in the fourteenth century Old Norse-Icelandic tale '' Stjörnu-Odda draumr''. The Oddatala The Oddatala (Icelandic for: ''Oddi's tale'') is the only known written work of Star Oddi. In print, the text is only a couple of pages long divided into three chapters. The first chapter presents the exact date and time of summer and winter solstices with relation to the leap years. In the second chapter, Oddi specifies the sun's ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Iceland
Iceland ( is, Ísland; ) is a Nordic island country in the North Atlantic Ocean and in the Arctic Ocean. Iceland is the most sparsely populated country in Europe. Iceland's capital and largest city is Reykjavík, which (along with its surrounding areas) is home to over 65% of the population. Iceland is the biggest part of the Mid-Atlantic Ridge that rises above sea level, and its central volcanic plateau is erupting almost constantly. The interior consists of a plateau characterised by sand and lava fields, mountains, and glaciers, and many glacial rivers flow to the sea through the lowlands. Iceland is warmed by the Gulf Stream and has a temperate climate, despite a high latitude just outside the Arctic Circle. Its high latitude and marine influence keep summers chilly, and most of its islands have a polar climate. According to the ancient manuscript , the settlement of Iceland began in 874 AD when the Norwegian chieftain Ingólfr Arnarson became the first p ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Astronomical
Astronomy () is a natural science that studies celestial objects and phenomena. It uses mathematics, physics, and chemistry in order to explain their origin and evolution. Objects of interest include planets, moons, stars, nebulae, galaxies, and comets. Relevant phenomena include supernova explosions, gamma ray bursts, quasars, blazars, pulsars, and cosmic microwave background radiation. More generally, astronomy studies everything that originates beyond Earth's atmosphere. Cosmology is a branch of astronomy that studies the universe as a whole. Astronomy is one of the oldest natural sciences. The early civilizations in recorded history made methodical observations of the night sky. These include the Babylonians, Greeks, Indians, Egyptians, Chinese, Maya, and many ancient indigenous peoples of the Americas. In the past, astronomy included disciplines as diverse as astrometry, celestial navigation, observational astronomy, and the making of calendars. Nowadays, professiona ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Solstices
A solstice is an event that occurs when the Sun appears to reach its most northerly or southerly excursion relative to the celestial equator on the celestial sphere. Two solstices occur annually, around June 21 and December 21. In many countries, the seasons of the year are determined by the solstices and the equinoxes. The term ''solstice'' can also be used in a broader sense, as the day when this occurs. The day of a solstice in either hemisphere has either the most sunlight of the year (summer solstice) or the least sunlight of the year (winter solstice) for any place other than the Equator. Alternative terms, with no ambiguity as to which hemisphere is the context, are "June solstice" and "December solstice", referring to the months in which they take place every year. The word ''solstice'' is derived from the Latin ''sol'' ("sun") and ''sistere'' ("to stand still"), because at the solstices, the Sun's declination appears to "stand still"; that is, the seasonal movement of ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Navigational Instruments
Navigational instruments are instruments used by nautical navigators and pilots as tools of their trade. The purpose of navigation is to ascertain the present position and to determine the speed, direction, etc. to arrive at the port or point of destination. Charts and drafting instruments *Charts are maps of the areas to be navigated with details specific to the marine environment. *Computing aids: used in the necessary mathematical calculations. Today electronic computers or calculators are used. Other traditional aids used included tables (trigonometric, logarithms, etc.) and slide rules. *Dividers used for measuring lengths of lines and approximate lengths of non-linear paths on a chart. *Nautical almanac used to determine the position in the sky of a celestial body after a sight has been taken. * Parallel rules used for transferring a line to a parallel position. Also used to compare the orientation of a line to a magnetic or geographic orientation on a compass rose. Direct ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Old Norse
Old Norse, Old Nordic, or Old Scandinavian, is a stage of development of North Germanic languages, North Germanic dialects before their final divergence into separate Nordic languages. Old Norse was spoken by inhabitants of Scandinavia and their Viking expansion, overseas settlements and chronologically coincides with the Viking Age, the Christianization of Scandinavia and the consolidation of Scandinavian kingdoms from about the 7th to the 15th centuries. The Proto-Norse language developed into Old Norse by the 8th century, and Old Norse began to develop into the modern North Germanic languages in the mid-to-late 14th century, ending the language phase known as Old Norse. These dates, however, are not absolute, since written Old Norse is found well into the 15th century. Old Norse was divided into three dialects: Old West Norse, ''Old West Norse'' or ''Old West Nordic'' (often referred to as ''Old Norse''), Old East Norse, ''Old East Norse'' or ''Old East Nordic'', and ''Ol ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Stjörnu-Odda Draumr
Stjörnu-Odda draumr (Star-Oddi's Dream) is a ''þáttr'' (short Old Norse-Icelandic tale) which recounts the dream-vision of Oddi Helgason, a twelfth-century Icelandic farmer and astronomer. It is considered to be "a literary ''tour de force'' and altogether unique in the saga corpus" because of its saga-within-a-dream narrative. The saga records that Oddi dreams that a guest arrives at his home and starts telling a legendary saga set in Götaland; during the course of the dream Oddi steps into this saga and becomes one of its characters: Now as soon as this man Dagfinn was named in the saga, the story goes that something very strange happened in Oddi's dream. Oddi himself thought he was this man Dagfinn, whereas the guest – the man who was telling the saga – is now out of our saga and out of the dream; and then Oddi thought that he himself could see and perceive everything which came afterwards in the dream. So after this point the dream is to be told just as it seemed to a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Leap Years
A leap year (also known as an intercalary year or bissextile year) is a calendar year that contains an additional day (or, in the case of a lunisolar calendar, a month) added to keep the calendar year synchronized with the astronomical year or seasonal year. Because astronomical events and seasons do not repeat in a whole number of days, calendars that have a constant number of days in each year will unavoidably drift over time with respect to the event that the year is supposed to track, such as seasons. By inserting (called '' intercalating'' in technical terminology) an additional day or month into some years, the drift between a civilization's dating system and the physical properties of the Solar System can be corrected. A year that is not a leap year is a common year. For example, in the Gregorian calendar, each leap year has 366 days instead of 365, by extending February to 29 days rather than the common 28. These extra days occur in each year that is an integer multipl ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Julian Calendar
The Julian calendar, proposed by Roman consul Julius Caesar in 46 BC, was a reform of the Roman calendar. It took effect on , by edict. It was designed with the aid of Greek mathematicians and astronomers such as Sosigenes of Alexandria. The calendar became the predominant calendar in the Roman Empire and subsequently most of the Western world for more than 1,600 years until 1582, when Pope Gregory XIII promulgated a minor modification to reduce the average length of the year from 365.25 days to 365.2425 days and thus corrected the Julian calendar's drift against the solar year. Worldwide adoption of this revised calendar, which became known as the Gregorian calendar, took place over the subsequent centuries, first in Catholic countries and subsequently in Protestant countries of the Western Christian world. The Julian calendar is still used in parts of the Eastern Orthodox Church and in parts of Oriental Orthodoxy as well as by the Berbers. The Julian calenda ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Icelandic Astronomers
Icelandic refers to anything of, from, or related to Iceland and may refer to: *Icelandic people *Icelandic language *Icelandic alphabet *Icelandic cuisine See also * Icelander (other) * Icelandic Airlines, a predecessor of Icelandair * Icelandic horse, a breed of domestic horse * Icelandic sheep, a breed of domestic sheep * Icelandic Sheepdog, a breed of domestic dog * Icelandic cattle Icelandic cattle ( is, íslenskur nautgripur ) are a breed of cattle native to Iceland. Cattle were first brought to the island during the Settlement of Iceland a thousand years ago. Icelandic cows are an especially colorful breed with a wide v ..., a breed of cattle * Icelandic chicken, a breed of chicken {{disambig Language and nationality disambiguation pages ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Year Of Death Uncertain
A year or annus is the orbital period of a planetary body, for example, the Earth, moving in its orbit around the Sun. Due to the Earth's axial tilt, the course of a year sees the passing of the seasons, marked by change in weather, the hours of daylight, and, consequently, vegetation and soil fertility. In temperate and subpolar regions around the planet, four seasons are generally recognized: spring, summer, autumn and winter. In tropical and subtropical regions, several geographical sectors do not present defined seasons; but in the seasonal tropics, the annual wet and dry seasons are recognized and tracked. A calendar year is an approximation of the number of days of the Earth's orbital period, as counted in a given calendar. The Gregorian calendar, or modern calendar, presents its calendar year to be either a common year of 365 days or a leap year of 366 days, as do the Julian calendars. For the Gregorian calendar, the average length of the calendar year (the mea ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
1070s Births
1 (one, unit, unity) is a number representing a single or the only entity. 1 is also a numerical digit and represents a single unit of counting or measurement. For example, a line segment of ''unit length'' is a line segment of length 1. In conventions of sign where zero is considered neither positive nor negative, 1 is the first and smallest positive integer. It is also sometimes considered the first of the infinite sequence of natural numbers, followed by 2, although by other definitions 1 is the second natural number, following 0. The fundamental mathematical property of 1 is to be a multiplicative identity, meaning that any number multiplied by 1 equals the same number. Most if not all properties of 1 can be deduced from this. In advanced mathematics, a multiplicative identity is often denoted 1, even if it is not a number. 1 is by convention not considered a prime number; this was not universally accepted until the mid-20th century. Additionally, 1 is the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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